Warning Sign
by National Wolves
Summary: After years of not seeing his old friend, highschooler Zuko gets a text that Aang will be at his house in a few minutes. Zukaang modern au oneshot. (Whoops made a 2nd Chapter)
1. Chapter 1

*You home? I'm gonna come over in a bit.*

It was glowing all over my face. I kept flicking my finger on my phone to keep the message lit. I hadn't seen Aang in years. Not since everything settled down in the capital. What was he thinking? I paced around the sitting room trying to imagine what could possibly the matter. Nothing could distract me from my thoughts. Not the hush of the oceans. Not the evening arrival of mosquitoes to greet me and the shining lamp in the beach house. Not the drumming rhythm at the door. "Does he even know I'm on vacation?" I asked aloud.

"Well, I sure hope he does," a sly familiar voice answered. I looked up embarrassed. Azula stood leaning on the door frame, with everything practically melting on her. Her posture. Her leather jacket. The two escaped bangs dripping down her face. "Zuzu, I thought you got over this monologuing thing after dad went to jail and dearest mommy came back," Azula continued with condescension leaking out like an oil spill.

"I just do it when I'm stressed," I grunted, ignoring her obvious bating, "And right now I'm very stressed and I'm pretty sure you won't be much help with this."

She walked over toward me without making a sound, avoiding the multitude of floorboards that I had been creaking symphonically for the past fifteen minutes. "Ouch! I know we haven't always been the Bennet sisters, but certainly we still retain some sisterly affection" Another bait I wouldn't bite. "Who needs to know your on vacation?" she asked cocking an eyebrow. I hid my phone to my chest.

"No one." I replied but just as quickly realized that my answer would inspire rather than satisfy a spy like my sister. I tried lying next. "It's just a dumb student diplomat from the model UN at school."

Azula was circling me like a shark now, and I spun around slowly to keep her in my eyesight. "Oh, you sweet pure cinnamon bun," she pouted, "even if you were any good at lying — which you most certainly aren't — who's to say I didn't already make my own correspondence with a certain prancing orphan about our current whereabouts?"

"The orphan thing is more complicated than that and you know it!" I exploded, then just as quickly froze. "You didn't," I demanded, although I don't know how since I could swear I hadn't moved a muscle.

"I couldn't resist. You know, I developed such a fondness for him while we were all fighting to the death. So few people really give me a challenge." She hooked the back of my leg with my foot and my knee buckled. I started to grumble, but she moved on with her explanation. "Besides, you have so much in common…" Through my t-shirt, she dragged her finger like a paintbrush around the scar on my chest. "I thought you should reconnect."

"It's just a weird coincidence." With a swipe, I threw her arm off of me. "And you couldn't have given me a heads up? He said he's coming over in a few minutes! The house is a wreck. I didn't wash my hair after swimming today." I chanced a look down at myself. "And I'm wearing my fucking pajamas!"

I started toward Azula trying to appear as angry and intimidating as possible and she backed toward the window on the ocean side of the house. The shadow of the night crept onto her mischievous expression. "Oh, Zuko. I thought you would be excited. After a quick skim, it seemed like your diary—" That was it. I squeezed my eyes shut and threw a perfectly aimed fist right for her face (this was what our sibling relationship was all about). But my punch made no contact, and when I opened my eyes, no one was there. I leaned out the window and saw her snickering to herself two stories down as she ran toward town. She was agile, I'd give her that. "Have fun with Aang, Zuzu!" she called back, "And don't tell mom I went to bed early. Please and thank you!" The proprieties faded into the evening, as I pulled up the text again.

I reared my thumbs to respond, typing and deleting in an attempt to craft a literarily competent response that still seemed casual. *Hey! I'm here! But I guess you already knew that. Sort of.* I stared like a hypnosis victim at my draft. Was it too vague? Too casual? Too wordy?

It didn't matter. Ellipses in their bubble popped up letting me know Aang was typing something to me. Before I could even berate myself over the fact that he might've seen bubbled ellipses on his end for the past fifteen minutes while I wrote my text (okay, so maybe there was enough time for that), he sent a one word message. *Here!* (Of course he used an exclamation point. Aang was a walking exclamation point.) The knock this time was farther away, but seemed like a top 40 song compared to Azula's earlier funeral march tapped out on the door frame. "Coming!" I yelled, sprinting toward the front door and trying to climb out of the gutter from thinking about the sexual connotations of what I just yelled.

He was bathed in the floodlight, looking like some kind of holy icon. He had on the arrow hat his parents had given him before they passed and the orange sweater worn thin from use. He wore both what seemed like every other day. I could see his skin patches of skin through some of the more threadbare portions. But I stopped my scanning the moment he cheesed hardcore and said my name. His voice was familiar, but matured. Like before I had been swimming in a lake, but now I was in the ocean.

"Aang!" I'm sure my smile wasn't as big as his. Everything I did happily always seemed to come off like a simmering smirk. And who else could smile that big anyway? He went straight for a hug, sliding the brim of his hat across the top of my head and everything else coming in for a big smoosh. This wasn't some patty-cake guy hug. He meant it. I really meant it. I squeezed him harder. Maybe if I crushed him I could keep him here in a jar like someone's cremated ashes. A few years ago, that would've solved all of my problems. But now I just wanted to give this silly kid all the things that kept me alive so that he could live two more lives. I don't think I accomplished that with this hug exactly: he seemed to squeeze harder in response, so it probably all leveled out. Still, it was one of the best hugs I've ever had.

We pulled back in synchronicity. "Hey," I said, "How have you been?"

"It's so good to see you," he practically sang. He somehow seemed to answer my question while ignoring it at the same time.

I invited him into the house and grabbed him a beer. He used to be pretty straight-laced about this sort of thing. But I guess I was pretty intense about a lot of things, too. Now he seemed even more relaxed than before, like he was floating through the house. I kept trying to notice all the little things that had changed while we toured around the place and he investigated all the childhood pictures (Thank goodness we could replace the naked baby pics with some new happy family shots with mom.) We finished the tour in the living room, and while Aang checked out the pictures hanging on the walls, I popped a squat on the couch.

"So were you visiting Fire Island with your crew or a club or something?" This seemed like a safe way of asking. I knew from insta that Aang still hung out with Katara and Sokka despite the break up, and Aang kept majorly busy with all sorts of groups. High school greens. Veggie club. All the democracy now kind of stuff.

"Nope," he replied turning from my framed awkward teenage years to the current me, "Just made the trip to see you." I couldn't tell if the warmth I felt was a blush or the quick onset of Asian glow, but either way I tried to act more calm than I felt. Especially when Aang sat right next to me on the couch. Not in one of the chairs facing the couch. Not on the other end of the couch. It wasn't a thumb-pinky situation. It was a full-on extended ring finger and pinky cuddled up while the rest of the fingers got ignored.

"Okay," I said turning to face him, but also trying to pull back a little, "I guess I'm just a little confused." My voice went up at the end, hopefully implying that more explanation would be helpful. Then I did my best impression of a confused face for added effect. Aang looked back at me thoughtfully, although the rosy flush on his golden cheeks — like everything else about him — were a reminder of his hard-earned innocence.

"Well, I had all these reasons and signs pointing out what I needed to do," he played with a loose thread on the couch cushion by my shoulder, "why things would kind of inevitably fall apart or just not work out to begin with." Concerned, I placed my hand on his outstretched forearm. Before I could ask about it, he went on. "But Sokka and Katara and Toph all kind of said variations of the same thing." Drawn to the mystery, I leaned toward him. Then he leaned closer to me. I haven't often been inches apart from someone's face. Maybe the gravitational pull I felt (and was resisting in that moment with all the might of a satellite) happens every time. But I've never felt tied so tightly to anything else before. And when Aang asked if he could kiss me, I let the knot close.

It started off soft, like the pulsing of fireflies in and out of dusk. A lot can be said about lips. I'll say this about Aang's: I loved them from that first moment onward. They met mine and pushed and pulled like tides. And the sandy stubble on his chin! I never had thought about the difference intensely. I'll admit now that this might have been on my mind. And I had even thought about a few other boys. But it never occurred to me how the scratch of someone else's facial hair could validate your whole sexuality. I rubbed my hands up the fade on the back of his head for double the pleasure. And Aang, for his part, had one hand braided in my hair and the other testing friendly waters at the hem of my shirt.

Between the sighs, the sips, and the smiles, Aang reared back and grinned more wildly than he ever had before (though for the first time my happiness felt bigger and more uncontainable). (I definitely was letting Azula off the hook for tonight.) "So this is why you came?" I tried to teasingly chide, but my smile was much too excessive for that game.

"No, not exactly," Aang laughed and snuck in another kiss. "The truth is," he said, "I just missed you."


	2. Chapter 2

A touch. Everything in the universe can touch. Everything can bump up against something else. And whether the atoms get back to where they were before, whether we get back to where we are now, we touched one another. We can't escape that simple exchange, nor its consequences.

So we're sitting on your couch, a part of the universe. I am small. Your arms wrap around me like sky. I pull away from you kissing me — or am I kissing you? I pull away from our kiss. How did we get here? It's like being born again. "So this is why you came?" you ask with a smile. A smile. Not a smirk. You always smirk. I used to think you hid a secret in your smirk. I learned, though, from texting you late into the night, from riding with you in your car, from visiting your house. Our expressions aren't our own, are they? Or, they don't always come free of charge. I touch your cheek. I wish it didn't matter which one. But it does. It's supple and dimpled like a rose. Your smile is so big, you must not even notice. In this moment, he couldn't possibly restrain the joy on your face, even if he was here. There's joy in the little lines of scarlet on your lips and joy dancing in the amber in your eyes and joy wrinkled in the warm brown skin all over your face, and joy still and vibrant in the pink scar. And I think I love it all. Maybe I've always loved it all. But that's not the question you asked. _So this is why you came?_

"No, not exactly," I say, "The truth is, I just missed you." And if there's a second of hesitation, I must've passed out briefly, because we were in our kiss again before I put the period on my sentence. And my hand is at the tail of your oversized t-shirt. Oh my god. I can't believe I didn't notice you were in your pajamas. Is it that late? But your mouth is sucking time right from my lips, so it doesn't matter. Forever could pass us by with your hand bristling against the back of my head and your tongue doing exactly that. Yes, I don't care if it feels weird right now. It's _your_ tongue. And we have forever to figure all this out.

When forever's over, I have to remember to send Azula a text. And Katara. And Sokka. And Toph, she'd want to know, too. Maybe I'll leave out some of the details. Like how he made a ladder of kisses up to my ear, and how I couldn't hold in a moan when he got to the top. And everywhere my hands had troubled under his shirt by now. That would also be left out of the text. But I need to thank them. Despite how evident it was now in your flurry of affection, I really didn't think you wanted any of this.

I thought you were just in need of a friend. Someone who could listen to you and let you know that you didn't need to do anything to earn their love. I remember thinking exactly that when we were eating ice cream at the gas station. Your mom was going to be coming back to keep you and your sister after your dad (is there not a list of reasons for which we can revoke that title) went to jail. And you were so afraid she would be disappointed in you. You were tucked under your black hoodie licking away (not too different from what you are doing right now tbh). I told you to look up and pointed out Perseus, jeweled and stored in the night sky. Then I told you the story about Perseus and his mother (a little more complicated, I know). As I blabbed on about Greek mythology, your smirk appeared illuminated by the neon red from the station's open sign. My ice cream was melting in streams across my fingers, neglected in exchange for stories. Your ice cream was gone, the victim of a focused listener. I knew even then that I could give up ice cream forever if I could just let you know you deserved to be loved. Deserved the love you were told to withhold from yourself.

I think you found that. After that night, we didn't hang out again. We texted plenty, at least for a few months afterwards. But we didn't go to the same school, our friend group kind of disbanded without a mutual enemy to plot against (read: your dad), and your mom really gave you the kind of love you needed. You started making friends at school (a first), got really involved in a bunch of school orgs, and just generally built a life that fit you.

So I faded out—it was no big deal. You didn't need me the way you did before. And I had things to keep me busy at school and friends to keep me busy outside of school. I think Katara noticed first, though. We only dated our freshman year. (No one should date their freshman year. Especially guys. I was a bit of jerk — demanding, selfish, short-tempered, etc. But, who's surprised? My voice hadn't even fully changed!) But she still remained my closest friend and she kept tabs on my feelings. Backstage at a drama rehearsal one day, she noticed my emotions had flatlined over the past month. I tried to explain, but, I was so clueless, it was like trying to remember what I had forgotten when I walked out of a room. Katara had me lay out the sequence of events. "You know," she said, "It's okay to spend time with someone just because. It doesn't have to be a need. And it definitely doesn't have to be centered on whether he wants it or not. It's okay for you to ask to hang if that's what you want, Aang." It took a few more repetitions from the others, and Azula texting me that you had been wanting to hang out before I finally went for it.

And now we are really going for it. We're horizontal now. When did I push you over? Or did you recline? I try everything with my lips that you did. I feel all of you through your shirt and your pajama bottoms. I'm sure you can feel me. And we don't have any shame about it. We both agree between licks and kisses, to leave it here. Why treat happiness like passion? Even if we did go all the way, I still think there would be all this laughter. People don't talk about sexy stuff and laughing, but it was mixed in like chocolate chips. Not essential, yet so satisfying and sweet.

It all slows down like the end of the day with people trickling out of work, the sunlight going from golden, to pink, to a deep night purple, and the lights turning on across the neighborhoods. I roll into the fold of the couch beside you and grin at your profile as you stare dreamily at the ceiling with intermittent glances at me. My arm stretches on your chest, right across the scar. Your arm sweeps around my back, right across mine. "How long?" I ask. You glance down at yourself with a look of discomfort. I tickle the room again with more laughter. "How long have you wanted to do that?"

You laugh and smile. I love your smile. How it spreads out and pushes away atoms of air so they could go tell other atoms, and they could tell other atoms, etc. that you are happy. "I don't think I knew at the time. Do you want to know when I first wanted it or when I figured it out?"

"Both," I said unable to keep myself from pecking the cherry of your cheek with a superfluous kiss.

"Well, I figured it out when you texted me earlier tonight." There's the smirk.

"And when did you first want it?"

You turn to look at me with something deeper than a smile. "I _would_ say, 'Remember that time when you caused that explosion in that alley when you first met Katara and Sokka, and you climbed up the fire escape to run away before someone found you. But you looked back when you were at the top of the building and I was standing there looking at you?"

It was my turn to smirk. "That was the first time you saw me."

"Well, I would say that, but the first sight deal doesn't make much sense to me. So I must've wanted this in all the lives I've lived before."

"I hope our past lives got some action with each other," I say fitting my head in the groove of your neck like a sleepy puzzle piece.

With a peaceful sigh that echoes from your body into mine, you reply "And our future lives, too."


End file.
